Visualization and Pathological Characteristics of Hepatic Alveolar Echinococcosis with Synchrotron-based X-ray Phase Sensitive Micro-tomography

Propagation-based phase-contrast computed tomography (PPCT) utilizes highly sensitive phase-contrast technology applied to X-ray micro-tomography, especially with the extensive use of synchrotron radiation (SR). Performing phase retrieval (PR) on the acquired angular projections can enhance image contrast and enable quantitative imaging. We employed the combination of SR-PPCT and PR for the histopathological evaluation of hepatic alveolar echinococcosis (HAE) disease and demonstrated the validity and superiority of PR-based SR-PPCT. A high-resolution angular projection data set of a human postoperative specimen of HAE disease was acquired, which was processed by graded ethanol concentration fixation (GECF). The reconstructed images from both approaches, with the projection data directly used and preprocessed by PR for tomographic reconstruction, were compared in terms of the tissue contrast-to-noise ratio and density spatial resolution. The PR-based SR-PPCT was selected for microscale measurement and the 3D visualization of HAE disease. Our experimental results demonstrated that the PR-based SR-PPCT technique is greatly suitable for the discrimination of pathological tissues and the characterization of HAE. In addition, this new technique is superior to conventional hospital CT and microscopy for the three-dimensional, non-destructive microscale measurement of HAE. This PR-based SR-PPCT technique has great potential for in situmicroscale histopathological analysis and diagnosis, especially for applications involving soft tissues and organs.